


No Dawn, No Day

by iridiumring92



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Noctis decides he wants to fight the Astrals, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-08-29 01:19:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16734306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iridiumring92/pseuds/iridiumring92
Summary: Noctis doesn't manage to make it out of the Crown City before the siege, and within a few hours, everything he knows falls away from him. He and the others take to the road, propelled forward by the catastrophic events behind them. And away from the city, Noctis begins to hear the call of the Astrals.However, their flight from the Crown City rapidly becomes a war. Because the gods aren't guiding Noctis. They're fighting him.





	1. Eyes Firmly Fixed on Our Next Disaster

**Author's Note:**

> _"Get up off your knees, boy_   
>  _Stand face to face with your god_   
>  _And find out what you are"_   
>  _\- Highly Suspect_
> 
> i was feeling a little bit nostalgic and decided to post this fic i started last november. i worked on it during nanowrimo - and the idea behind it is over a year old now. i just didn't want it to collect dust, and i miss final fantasy xv. so.
> 
> title is from florence & the machine - cosmic love.

_My dear son, I have been planning to send you away for a long time. I am deeply sorry. I have learned of many dark things that must happen in the next few years, all in order to bring back the light. . . ._

Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum crouched in the shadow of a ruined building, his arms circling his knees, tears that he refused to let fall brimming in his eyes. He’d read the letter hours ago, but the words still ricocheted in his mind, like blades glancing off one another.

_I have not the time to relay every piece of information. Yet I do have one warning to you: if you choose to remain in Insomnia, trust no one but your Kingsglaive. No other allegiance is as stable, as others may bend to promises of power, and I believe those you have chosen are loyal._

_Please, Noctis, tread your path carefully._

His father had known. No other thought could cross his mind with this one barring the way. _Trust no one but your Kingsglaive._ King Regis had known Noctis would have to take his place while chaos reigned elsewhere, known those nearest Noctis would soon have to make the transition from companions to Kingsglaive. He had _known he would die._ The thought made Noctis feel as if he were falling to pieces. He was unbound, unmoored, and utterly without direction.

And they were searching for him.

He could still hear the explosions echoing all around him, the screams, the hum that followed the empire’s magitek engines everywhere they went. He thought he might have been injured, running here, because his jacket was wet with blood, but he didn’t feel any pain. He knew he should leave the city. His father had written that Noctis would have to take the throne, but _someday_ , not _immediately,_ and Noctis knew he would do no city any good if he died here. He knew he should find his Crownsguard—his _Kingsglaive, trust no one but your Kingsglaive—_ but he could do nothing but sit frozen in the shadows of the ruins, shivering, listening to the sounds of destruction around him.

He didn’t know how long he spent there, staring at the rubble in front of him, his body curling in on itself. But a voice broke through the turmoil around him, deep and unforgiving and familiar. Male. He heard several swears shatter the air before the voice actually caught his attention.

“Noct. _Noct._ ”

Gladio, his shield, knelt in the shards of ruined buildings before him. He dropped a hand onto Noctis’s shoulder. “Noct. Get it together. You know you can’t stay in one place like this, you’re gonna get yourself killed,” he said. When Noctis didn’t respond, when his eyes refused to focus on Gladio’s, his shield shook his shoulder, hard. “Noct, come on. We have to go.”

In the end he gave up and slung Noctis over his shoulder in one swift motion. Noctis put up a weak protest, murmuring, “Put me down,” but Gladio just shook his head. Looking over his shoulder, Noctis caught sight of several soldiers tailing them. Crownsguard, not enemy, Noctis noted sedately. The scene around him was fading, and his body was no longer responding. He let his eyes drift closed.

He came to slumped against the broken section of a wall, just next to a two-lane road, deserted. The sounds of gunfire had faded far into the background, and the whole scene felt muted and surreal to Noctis. He glanced around—there was a car in the road, one that looked suspiciously like his father’s. A sleek black car, recently polished. Dimly, he wondered how a machine so well-maintained could even exist in this ruin of a city anymore.

His eyes were drawn to the driver’s door, propped slightly open. Outside of it stood a man in black clothing, one he didn’t immediately recognize. And in the driver’s seat— _oh._ His advisor, Ignis. His gaze shifted back to the man standing opposite the door. Slowly, the recognition came to him. Cor Leonis, a member of the Crownsguard. The Marshal. Noctis blinked, trying to clear his head.

“He’s awake,” a voice called. Familiar, again. So familiar. He looked left and there was Prompto, drawn into a crouch with his hands braced in the grass. “Noct. Hey, Noct. You feelin’ okay?”

“Where . . .” Noctis began. Before he could finish the question, Gladio appeared again at his other side, offering a hand.

“Let’s go to the car,” he said. “We need to leave. Don’t have much time.”

Noctis looked at his hand, unsure what the gesture meant. He heard Gladio sigh. “Prompto, help me get him to the car,” he said in a low voice. Prompto said something in response, though Noctis missed what it was, and seconds later they were lifting him off his feet, bracing his form between them. Noctis felt a strange sense of vertigo as they moved toward the car, his feet occasionally dragging against the grass. He tried closing his eyes, but it only made the sensation worse.

Moments later, Cor and Ignis were looking at them, Cor stepping forward to open the back door. Prompto and Gladio helped him into the backseat. Noctis leaned back to feel the cool leather against his skin.

“I’ll meet up with you four as soon as I’m finished here,” Cor said. “Until then, stay alive. Protect him at all costs.”

Noctis closed his eyes. He thought he heard the car door closing beside him. He was sleepy, so sleepy, and he just wanted to lie across the backseat and take a nap. Gods, what he wouldn’t give for a nap. At the same time, he had the strange feeling that he’d forgotten something. He couldn’t sleep until . . . what? He turned to press his cheek against the car door. It was so smooth and cold, and he felt so warm, his limbs so heavy. His thoughts were shapeless, colorless, melting away when he reached for them. Ghosts.

“Hey. Noct.” He felt a hand on his shoulder. Identified the voice as familiar. Gladio’s? “Noct, you better stay with us, got it?”

“I’m just tired,” he said, but thereafter, he wasn’t sure whether he’d actually said it, or if he’d just given the thought enough force that it took on the form of a spoken sentence. He weighed the options like a balance. Thought? Sentence? He couldn’t decide the weight of either. He tried again. “Just give me a few minutes.”

He thought he felt that weight at his shoulder again, but it was so much lighter than the last time. Besides, he felt so numb. He felt himself drifting. Reality was so far away, and it hurt too much.

His eyes fluttered open. Ignis’s hand was on his forehead. “He has a bit of a fever.”

He blinked again, and Gladio was leaning forward, giving directions. “The Marshal said it’s just past here.”

When Noctis swam back to consciousness a third time, he felt sheets surrounding him instead of the car’s leather seats. He trailed a hand through them curiously, unsure how he had gotten there, trying to puzzle it out. He tipped his head to the side to see Prompto sitting on the other side of the bed.

“Hey, Noct,” he said. “You awake?”

“Where are we?” Noctis murmured. He tried to sit up, but the very motion made his muscles and his back ache, so he settled for turning onto his side, but that didn’t work, either. Prompto gave his shoulder a light tap of reassurance.

“We decided to stop at a hotel for a little while,” he said. “Ignis went to find you some cold medicine, so don’t worry, he should be back soon. And, uh, we made sure nobody on the staff would say anything. So don’t worry about that either.”

“Why cold medicine?” Noctis asked. He’d returned to lying on his back, but even that made his back throb in protest. He felt sort of like he’d slept on it wrong.

“He said you seemed feverish,” Prompto said. “Thought it would help.”

Noctis stared up at the ceiling, thinking about the throbbing in his back. It always hurt the most near the scar, regardless of whether the aches extended to his skin or not. He wondered what he’d done to make the pain flare up again. Had he done something while they’d been back in Insomnia? He couldn’t remember what had happened in Insomnia.

A flash of memory hit him, his hand holding the letter that his father had written him, crinkling the paper, his tears marring the script on the page, his anger at his father for _knowing_ , at himself for crying, at _fate itself._ Why did everything have to be predetermined by the gods? Why couldn’t his father have fought it? Why couldn’t Noctis have fought it? He thought of the soldiers storming the Citadel, his father’s guards telling him to run, his feet carrying him through the city as fleets of Imperial ships descended on it like dark clouds. He saw the Wall falling like shattered glass. He saw the blood on his jacket. He tried to push the thoughts out of his head, but they just kept coming.

He realized he’d curled on his side, making the pain in his back infinitely worse, and that he was whimpering, he was crying. Prompto had a hand on his shoulder and was hushing him, telling him that he’d be okay, that they were here for him. Noctis clutched fistfuls of the sheets in his hands in death grips—he hated himself for being so weak. He couldn’t do this. He _couldn’t . . ._

Eventually his sobs tapered off, and he closed his eyes again, sinking back toward sleep. His grief exhausted him endlessly. He felt a hand on his shoulder again, and Prompto’s voice saying that he could sleep for a while if he wanted, that Ignis would be back soon.

“Noct?”

A soft voice woke him. He tried to turn toward it, but his whole body ached, protested, and with a low groan he gave up. He felt the other side of the mattress shift, heard Prompto’s and Ignis’s voices murmuring too quietly for him to make out words. In the next moment, he felt warmth beside him.

“Noct, I brought you some medicine,” Ignis’s voice whispered. _Familiar._ “I had hoped it would help with your fever.” A moment of silence followed this sentence. “Do you think you can sit up for me?”

Noctis made a small sound of protest, but Ignis helped him into a sitting position, so that his back rested against the pillows. The whole endeavor hurt like hell, and at the end of it, Ignis pressed two pills into his hand and gave him a glass of water. When Noctis had swallowed both pills with a sip of water, he handed the glass back to Ignis. “Thank you,” he choked out, his voice hoarse. Had it sounded that way earlier?

Ignis’s eyes were swimming with sadness when he looked back at Noctis and moved off the edge of the bed. “You don’t have to thank me, Highness.”

Noctis wanted to reach out after him, to tell him not to leave, but within moments he had moved to the opposite side of the room and was speaking in a low voice to Gladio, who’d leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest, looking like he was guarding the door. Prompto took his place, sitting on the bed next to Noctis. He popped his knuckles, looking like he didn’t know what to do with his hands. Noctis glanced at his own hands, realizing that they were shaking and bandaged, and pulled at one of the loose edges of the bandages.

“Noct, don’t,” Prompto said softly, reaching for his hand to get his attention. Noctis looked up at him, a silent question of what had happened, and he drew breath to explain. “You were injured when we found you. Not sure what happened, but you had a few cuts and scrapes. Ignis did the bandages. He, uh, he cleaned the wounds and everything while you were asleep. Just so you know.”

“Oh.” Unable to think of anything else to say, Noctis stared at his hands. Come to think of it, his hands ached just like the rest of him. He closed his eyes and turned his face sideways into the pillow.

Prompto put a reassuring hand on his arm again. “Get some rest,” he said. “You don’t have to worry about anything right now, okay?”

Even as he said this, Noctis could see Gladio and Ignis talking on the other side of the room, keeping their backs carefully turned. Ignis’s shoulders looked tight, and Gladio kept making restrained gestures with his hands. As he watched, Ignis pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head. Already, Noctis was beginning to forget what had happened in Insomnia—he remembered only foggy fragments of memory that didn’t quite make sense even when he put them together—but he gathered, from the anxiety in their gestures that they couldn’t quite conceal, that something clearly had the potential to follow them here, to pose a threat.

“Do you want to do something instead?” Prompto asked, pulling Noctis’s attention away from the other two. “Play King’s Knight? Or something? I think your phone’s still in your jacket pocket. I can get it for you, if you want it.”

“’S okay,” Noctis said, his voice still hoarse, low, nearly incoherent. He felt too exhausted to move and too rested to sleep. He let his eyes flit away from Gladio and Ignis and stared at the sheets, marveling at the fact that they’d somehow managed to keep his blood off them. For a few moments, he could think of nothing else, and this single thought followed a spiral until he found himself falling again into the darkness of sleep.

He woke to a quiet, sunlit room, without anyone shaking his shoulder or knocking at his door and telling him he had places to be, for the first time in a long time. His back still ached, but sleep and medicine had chased away most of the pain, and he was able to sit up. Yet the room was nearly empty, its only other occupant Gladio, who stood by the door the same way he had last night. He glanced over, and when he saw that Noctis was awake, he pushed away from the wall.

“Hey, Noct.” His tone was casual, but all the same, it sounded forced. “You feeling okay?”

“Okay,” Noctis conceded, a little reluctant. “Did . . . something happen? Where’s Prompto? And Ignis?”

“They’re outside,” Gladio said, aiming a thumb at the door. He cleared his throat. “Ignis got a phone call.”

“From who?”

“He didn’t say. He just—” Gladio stopped and shook his head, as if he’d said more than he’d intended to. “They should be back soon. You need anything?”

“Do we have any food?” Noctis asked. “I’m starving.”

In spite of the situation, Gladio grinned. “There’s His Highness. You know, we actually don’t, but I could send Prompto off to find some.”

“You guys didn’t eat last night?”

“Sure we did. You just weren’t awake for it.”

Noctis groaned. “Jeez. You know even sleeping princes can’t go without food that long, right?”

“Just give it a couple minutes, Sleeping Beauty. We’ll get it taken care of.”

Pulling the sheets back over him, Noctis lay down again. Sitting up had made the low ache in his back grow to a slightly less tolerable burn. “And ask Ignis for some more of that medicine, would you,” he said.

“Whatever you say.” Gladio hovered near the door, possibly listening for the conversation supposedly happening on the other side. Noctis wondered who would have called, and why it was taking so long.

A minute later, the door swung open, thudding against the opposite wall. Ignis stopped on the threshold, and though Noctis was halfway across the room and couldn’t see him very well, he still looked at a distance as if he hadn’t slept. His hair was in a bit of disarray, and his eyes looked red-rimmed. His sleeves were pushed haphazardly up to his elbows, uneven. “We need to leave,” he said, without preface.

“What’s goin’ on?” Gladio asked. His stance was tense, as if he were preparing for a fight. “Who called you?”

“The Marshal,” Ignis said, closing his eyes and adjusting his glasses. “He spent the night fighting in the Crown City, and he’s given me an update on the empire’s movements. The outlook isn’t good, to say the least. They are very near to this area as we speak. Remaining in one place is inadvisable, in any case.”

“What about Noct?” Prompto’s voice said from behind Ignis, defensive. “He wasn’t really feeling up to moving last night.”

“Yes, I’m aware. But we can’t risk our lives needlessly,” Ignis said. “We’d best keep moving. I can try to get us to another safe place.”

“Iggy. You didn’t even try to sleep last night.” Gladio’s voice was low, a warning. “Are you gonna be able to drive?”

“I’ll be fine.”

A silence fell among the three of them. Their only other driver was Noctis, who was in no state to be at the wheel of a vehicle, but if Ignis really hadn’t slept . . .

“We don’t have a choice,” Ignis said.

Gladio exhaled and ran a hand through his hair. “Aight, fine. If that’s what we gotta do,” he said. “By the way, Noct mentioned that he hasn’t eaten. One of you wanna grab some food?”

“I’m on it,” Prompto said. “You guys get the car.”

The group disbanded, and the door slammed shut again as Gladio moved to retrieve Noctis, who had wrapped himself in a cocoon of sheets.

“Can you walk, Noct?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Grudgingly, Noctis untangled himself from the sheets and swung his legs over the side of the bed, but as soon as he tried to rise to his feet, he stumbled, his legs threatening to give out on him. He swore under his breath.

“Don’t sweat it, I got you.” In the next moment, Gladio had him slung over one shoulder again. Though it made the pain in his back a little worse, he resigned himself to it. Better than losing his balance.

They managed to convene at the Regalia, Ignis having returned their room keys and Prompto dashing in at the last second with some food for Noctis—“No vegetables, at least, I don’t think so,” he said, out of breath, earning a practiced eye roll from Ignis—and peeled out of the lot. Gladio had to go through Ignis’s stuff to find the cold medicine and coffee, while Prompto handed the paper bag that contained the food diagonally across the gap between seats to Noctis. The roads were empty.

“So, where are we going?” Prompto asked when the four of them had settled in somewhat. In the backseat, Noctis opened the bag Prompto had given him to find sandwiches, mediocre but indeed without the vegetables.

“If we can make it to Duscae,” Ignis said, “the refugees are said to have been sent to Lestallum. While that may not be the safest place for us at the moment, we may be able to find shelter in the shadows, so to speak. Duscae seems to be a relatively quiet area with rather more places to hide than Leide.” The road ahead was smooth, straight, and he reached easily for the can of coffee that he’d set in the front of the console.

“Is it far?” Prompto asked.

“A bit, yes. But we did make decent time yesterday.”

The car fell silent. Noctis focused on eating, trying to keep stray crumbs out of the leather seats. He still didn’t feel well. The silence was suffocating.

“Can you guys tell me what happened back in Insomnia?” he asked finally, halfway through one of the sandwiches. “I don’t really remember much now.”

For a tense moment, no one spoke, but at last Ignis broke the silence. “Perhaps that should be a story for another time, Highness.”

“I don’t see why not now.”

“Because it had you so stressed that you passed out for almost an entire day,” Gladio said. “Look, Noct, this doesn’t mean we’re not gonna tell you. It just means it’s the kind of stuff that you have to be careful with. You really don’t remember anything?”

“I remember some things.” Noctis thought of the letter in his hand, the way his throat had felt like it was closing.

_—trust no one but your Kingsglaive—_

He shook away the flashes of memory. “Just not all of it,” he followed up. “Not most of it, I mean.”

“Noct.” Even Ignis looked panicked. “I truly don’t think this is a good idea right now.”

“I want to know why we’re running,” Noctis insisted, his voice rising. “I know we couldn’t be in Insomnia while the Empire was there, but what about now? They can’t keep destroying forever, and if they can’t find me, they’ll assume I’m dead. They’ll assume they have full control. We can’t _allow_ them—”

“Noct,” Prompto said.

“What,” Noctis snapped. “What is it? What the hell happened?”

Gladio turned to look at him. “Your father—at the beginning of the invasion, the Kingsglaive reported that imperial soldiers had assassinated the king. That was what set everything off. And besides, it’s what prompted the Kingsglaive to send the rest of us looking for you. You were AWOL, and after the king’s assassination, that was scaring the shit out of some important people. But the fact that you were gone wasn’t lost on the empire, either, and they weren’t in any way done with the city.”

Noctis remembered stumbling into a ruined building, kneeling in a field of broken walls and windows. He didn’t remember leaving the Citadel at all. Didn’t remember how he’d gotten to that place.

“You’ve been practically catatonic since we found you, Highness,” Ignis said. “It wouldn’t be wise to go back now. And strategically, we need to lie low for a good long while. It’s better if they think you’re out of commission. That way they won’t come after you, and you’ll have the advantage when you do decide to strike back.”

“So if they’re not coming after us, why are we running from them?” Noctis asked, his voice still sharp.

“Like I said.” Ignis’s words were tight, clipped. “In order to make sure that we’re not found, I want to stay as far away from them as possible. The Marshal advised us to stay clear, as well.”

Noctis sank back into his seat. “Fine,” he said. “I get it. You and everybody else want us to hide like goddamn cowards.”

“Shut up.” This from Gladio, who’d leaned forward again as if he meant to hit Noctis, though he kept his hands braced on his knees. “He’s trying to protect you. Don’t you get it? If you rush into every battle without a plan, you’re gonna wind up dead. Sometimes retreating is your wisest option.” He leveled a glare at Noctis, who just glared back from under his bangs. “You’re king now, so you need to start taking this kind of stuff seriously.”

“You guys,” Prompto cut in, “stop.” Gladio waved a dismissive hand in his direction. “No, listen. Stop attacking him. He just lost King Regis, and his city. It’s not fair to expect him to bounce back straight off.”

“This is his responsibility,” Gladio said. “He’s been preparing for it his whole life—”

“And I don’t want it!” Noctis flung his hands out at his sides. His eyes stung, his chest felt tight, but he didn’t know what to do with the nervous energy. He couldn’t cry. Not now. And he couldn’t hit anything. “I didn’t fucking ask for this, and I don’t want it, okay?” He ran a hand anxiously through his hair. “But I don’t wanna run. I want to behead the bastard who killed my dad.”

“Highness,” Ignis said, the word like an exasperated sigh, “even the Crownsguard doesn’t know who took your father’s life. You’d be wasting energy by pursuing that line of thought, and risking your own life besides.”

“So?”

“Please, Highness,” Ignis said. “Calm down. Returning to the Crown City is not an option we have.”

“And who’s making that decision?”

“Noct, stop,” Prompto said, turning around in the front seat. “You just need a minute to think, okay? And we’re going to give it to you. Everybody just—stay quiet until we get to where we’re going.”

Noctis felt his anger flare wildly in his chest for a moment and thought that he would lash out again, but instead the spike of energy died down as quickly as it had come on, giving way to the gaping void of his exhaustion. They were _right_. He’d just lost everything and he could do nothing. He leaned against the door and stared out the window, fighting the gravity that came with sleep. They were in the middle of nowhere. The land that passed by was endlessly bare, stripped of life, and monotonous. Almost soothing.

He woke up when he felt the car swerve, and his entire body swayed with the motion, nearly hitting the car door. “What the hell,” he burst out, startled, his heart jump-starting out of sleep.

“Noct, stay in the car,” Gladio said as Ignis put on the brakes and the three of them pushed open the doors. Outside, he could see a magitek engine, soldiers unloading from it and dropping to the ground, their jerky, inhuman movements giving them away.

“What do you mean, stay in the car,” Noctis shouted after them, but no one answered, and as soon as they’d turned their backs, he jumped out after them, calling his engine blade to his hand. The four of them plunged into the chaos.

Within seconds he was surrounded by the whirlwind that was combat, all his senses brought to attention by the disorder of blades and bodies clashing all around him, and the sheer necessity of keeping himself guarded. After he fell into the rhythm of it, he let his mind drift and his instincts take over. The effect was almost blissful, a relief from all the pain, and he lost himself to it gratefully.

When the area lapsed back into silence again, save for the wind and the occasional car on the road, the four of them turned to face each other in the graveyard they’d made of the space with the magitek troopers. Noctis realized Prompto was staring at him, his eyes wide.

“Holy shit, Noct, holy shit,” he was saying, half running across the clearing to where Noctis stood. “You need bandages. Is this an old wound or a new one?” He looked to Ignis. “A little help?”

“Noct, I _told_ you to stay out of this,” Gladio said, closing his eyes. “You aren’t ready to fight yet.”

“Why do you get to decide that?” Noctis asked.

“Look at yourself, Noct.”

Noctis did, and he saw mostly an array of bloodstains on his clothing. He hadn’t gotten his old jacket back after they’d fled Insomnia, and now his black T-shirt was smeared with blood. A new cut ran the length of his forearm, the offending weapon having separated some of the bandages that Ignis had put on his hand and wrist. Once again he felt no pain. The wound looked much worse than it felt—the blood ran in slow streams down his arm and between his fingers. He studied it with something like curiosity.

“Hey,” Prompto said, clapping his shoulder a couple of times. “You gotta snap out of it. You could really hurt yourself if you’re not careful.”

“So what?” Noctis said, stepping out of range. “It’s not like anyone will notice if I—”

“Stop there,” Ignis’s voice said, calmly. He had appeared at Noctis’s other side with a roll of bandages and a towel. “Prompto’s right. Let me take care of this for you, for now.”

Noctis, sulking, let him clean and bandage the new wound. He cast a few assessing glances around at the others and saw that none of them seemed at all injured. For some reason this detail only served to annoy him more. He said nothing as Ignis directed them back to the car, as they all slid into their seats and took to the road once again.

“Why didn’t you just keep going?” Noctis asked.

“They’d seen us,” Ignis said. “It would have been unwise to let them report back to their superiors. We had to.” He paused, but before Noctis could say anything, he added, “I’m sorry. We did make the decision without consulting you.”

“He doesn’t deserve your apologies, Ignis,” Gladio said in a low voice.

“It’s fine,” Noctis said. “It’s fine. We took care of it.”

He returned to looking out the window, and the other three fell into silence, the kind that meant they all had something to say but weren’t going to say it while Noctis was still with them. Noctis pretended not to notice. His arm had started to throb.

 

* * *

 

Several miles later, Ignis swore under his breath and pulled the car over again.

“What?” Prompto asked, leaning forward in his seat. “What is it?”

“They’ve blocked off the road leading to Duscae,” Ignis said. “I can see imperial soldiers patrolling the gate from here. Unless we fight, we aren’t getting through.”

Gladio shook his head. “Turn around. We can’t afford to go up against a force like that, especially not since we just got done fighting.”

“Indeed. Once we have a plan, we might be able to move in,” Ignis said. “But as of now, it would be dangerous. My only concern is how not to be noticed, now that we’ve gotten this close to the blockade.”

“Any back roads around here?” Gladio asked.

“I’ve no idea. We seem to have left without a map.” Ignis gestured to the glove compartment before shifting the car into reverse and backing up slowly. Once he’d made it a few hundred feet and checked to make sure no cars were coming toward them in the opposite lane, he swung the car around and floored the gas. The engine shifted between gears almost effortlessly, propelling them to speeds that were probably well above the posted limit. “Our first priority is finding somewhere remote to go now. If any of you sees a place to pull off, let me know, soon as you can.”

“There,” Prompto said not long after. He’d spotted a dirt road that departed from the main one they were on, and he pointed to it. Ignis gave a nod and turned off the paved road.

Noctis squinted out the car’s front window. If they couldn’t make it out of here and to Duscae, what hope did they have? They couldn’t just drive in circles around Leide forever. And if the empire did indeed suspect that they’d made it out of the Crown City, then they probably wouldn’t leave the blockade alone anytime soon. After a few minutes of watching the Regalia kick up dust and thinking his argument through, Noctis finally said as much to the other three.

The car was silent for several tense moments after he voiced his ideas, and at first Noctis thought that maybe they would still tell him he was wrong. But Ignis, letting the Regalia’s speed drift a little lower, answered him at last.

“Highness, I fear you’re right. We don’t have anywhere else to go, and I don’t think showing our faces at Hammerhead will be the best idea, either.” He sighed. “But you need to be very careful if we’re to fight. There will be no point in our taking this battle on if you don’t walk away from it.”

“I know.”

“Prompto, Gladio. What are your thoughts?” Ignis asked, turning for a heartbeat to look over his shoulder.

“Well, I don’t really want to,” Prompto said. “But I’ll do my best.”

“Only if Noct agrees to stay out of the middle of it.” Gladio threw a sideways look at Noctis. “Might’ve been your idea, but you don’t have to be the hero of the operation.”

“Yeah, I got it, I’ll try not to get killed,” Noctis said, rolling his eyes.

Ignis turned the car around again.

They pulled off the road and stepped out to survey the blockade. Lines of magitek troopers patrolled the gate, while a few larger mechs sat idle, no doubt ready to be activated at any moment. The whole scene had a tense, spring-loaded feeling to it. Or like the calm before the storm.

“They’re lying in wait,” Noctis murmured.

“Yes.” Ignis, at the front of the group, scanned the area ahead, searching for openings. “As much as I would like to make a strategic approach, I think the only way we’ll truly be able to take care of this situation is if we give it everything we have. We should stay as quiet as possible on our way in, and then strike. With any luck it might be somewhat unexpected.”

“Everyone keep an eye on Noct,” Gladio said. “Including you, Noct.”

“Thought I was supposed to be keeping an eye on the battle?” Noctis asked.

Gladio snorted. “Let’s just go.”

They crept toward the gate, keeping to the grass and the side of the road, trying to stay hidden. As they crept closer, Noctis felt a growing sense of _wrongness._ He wasn’t sure how, but he could almost _sense_ the attention of the soldiers up ahead. It shifted outward at first, realizing that there’d been a disturbance, and then slowly shifted to them, noticing their movement, assessing them as a threat. Noctis _knew_ a second before the one in charge issued the order to attack.

“Weapons!” he shouted just before the soldiers broke rank to rush them, before the larger mechs whirred to life. He reached up for his sword and dashed into the fray.

Once again he forgot Gladio’s orders, forgot the fact that he had to be careful. His wounds seemed to vanish—he no longer felt them, no longer thought about them. His movements became instinctive, his decisions to make them barely below his consciousness. He warped to towers and took out snipers. He pulled magic to his fingertips, flinging it into hordes of soldiers and aiming strategically at the larger mechs. Yet even as they fought, the soldiers just kept coming, and the mechs wouldn’t fall. The ranks seemed to be increasing, rather than decreasing. Noctis felt his reserves of magic getting low, his muscles beginning to ache, and he began to feel his wounds in the sharp bites of pain at his skin every time he moved. His breaths were rasping in his lungs. Short glances at the others told him that they were slowly losing energy, too.

A sudden, sharp pain in the back of Noctis’s head sent him to his knees in the middle of the battle.

His vision went dark for a moment, and he dropped his sword, covering his face with his hands and struggling to breathe. _Oh, gods._ This was it. He’d told the others that he would be okay, but here he was on his knees in the middle of a battlefield, in such excruciating pain that he couldn’t even gauge what was happening around him.

The air buzzed with electricity, the power in it growing so quickly that Noctis’s ears rang. He looked up, but even his eyes hurt, and he could feel the last of his power draining out of his body. With a little last sigh, he collapsed, his muscles giving out, and the world went dark.

 

* * *

 

 

When Noctis returned to consciousness, his head hurt like hell, not to mention the pain in his back, which had roared up like a fire with fresh kindling. He thought he might be lying in soft sheets, but his whole body hurt so much that he couldn’t really tell.

He could hear the others’ voices, but they must have been several feet away, or on the opposite side of the room, because they sounded muffled. He couldn’t even make out what they were saying. Without bothering to open his eyes and check on his surroundings, he rolled onto his side, pulling the sheets tighter around him.

He tried not to think about what had happened just before he’d passed out, but somehow he couldn’t seem to shake the things he’d felt in that moment. He’d felt like a fucking lightning rod just before the first strike in a storm. And his _head_. He’d never had a headache of that intensity. He half wondered if that was how Ignis felt, on those days before when he’d called Noctis and said he was taking the day off to sleep. When he was younger he hadn’t understood the subtext of that statement, but later he’d found out, not from Ignis, that his headaches sometimes kept him down for days at a time. Even then, Noctis hadn’t really understood how a headache could be so intense to keep someone from getting out of bed or answering the phone.

The pain he’d felt in the last moments of that battle had been some of the worst he’d ever felt. Besides, of course, the incident that had given him the scar on his back. His back, which currently throbbed with such insistence that he knew there wasn’t a chance in hell that he was going to fall asleep again. Well. He wished the others weren’t so far away. Maybe he could ask them for some more medicine if they were closer.

Finally, he opened his eyes and examined his surroundings. He did, in fact, have one of the room’s two beds all to himself, and a lamp cast low light over the room, wherever it was. The whole room felt calm, suspended in time. Judging by the small sliding door, it probably belonged to a caravan somewhere. The others must be outside, he reasoned. He wished he could get out of bed.

Noctis drifted in and out of consciousness, unable to truly sleep due to the residual pain lingering in his back and in his head, and unable to stay awake after the exhausting ordeal of a battle they’d just been through, not to mention the fact that his power reserves were still almost totally depleted. Damn, he was probably never going to hear the end of this.

He heard another door slide open farther away, followed by the door to his room opening and Ignis stepping in. He looked surprised when Noctis blinked and met his eyes blearily.

“Highness, you’re awake,” he said, striding into the room and kneeling down beside the bed. “Why didn’t you alert one of us?”

“My back . . .” Noctis’s own voice sounded less than coherent. “Didn’t think I could get up.”

“My apologies. I should have come in to check on you sooner,” Ignis sighed, reaching out and resting a hand on Noctis’s shoulder. “I can get you some medicine. I’ll be right back.”

“’Kay.” Noctis buried himself deeper in the sheets. He should have asked what happened. Ignis didn’t seem angry with him, despite the words they’d exchanged not that long ago. Or had it been that long ago? Shit, he didn’t even know how long he’d been asleep. He’d have to ask about that, too.

He had drifted off again when Ignis returned, and he opened his eyes, tried to sit up. Once again, his body refused to respond.

Ignis set two pills and another glass of water on the table beside the bed, and he reached out to touch Noctis’s shoulder again. “Highness,” he said, “you’ve really got to stop running yourself dry like this. You need to be more mindful of your limits, do you understand? Your back injury was—no one was certain if you would make it. It was, and still is, quite serious.”

Noctis forced a smile. “And you need to learn to stop calling me _Highness._ It’s _Majesty_ now, you know.” He couldn’t really tell in the low light, but he thought Ignis, his _advisor,_ might be blushing a little. “I’m kidding, Specs. It’s just Noct. I’m not that interested in titles.”

“It’s still hardly proper for me to—”

“We’re friends, too, remember?” Noctis reminded him. When Ignis didn’t respond, he said, “At least let me have the medicine. I’m dying here.”

“My apologies.”

Once he’d taken the pills, Noctis sank back down into the sheets. Ignis stood as if to leave, but Noctis called a “Wait,” in his direction, and he paused between the bed and the door.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Noctis asked. “Why I passed out? And how I’m not dead?”

“If that’s what you want.”

With a deep breath, Ignis lowered himself onto the end of the bed, though once he’d settled there he didn’t look comfortable. He looked like he had positioned himself to make a quick, strategic escape if he needed to, sitting as close to the edge of the mattress as possible with his feet braced firmly on the floor. For the first time, Noctis realized he should have asked about the others. _Holy hell._ Had he done something—had he hurt one of them on his way down? His chest seized with panic when he thought of them, oh, gods, what if he’d accidentally done something with the last of his power? What if Ignis was keeping his distance because he was afraid to get too close?

“Highness, I think you drained the last of your power by summoning some sort of storm,” Ignis said. “If you remember, we weren’t doing well in that fight against the empire’s troops. There were far too many of them for just the four of us. But you . . . Prompto saw you fall, and just as we were about to make our way to you, the sky went nearly pitch-black. There was rain, and then snow. Lightning came down to strike the imperial soldiers left and right, followed by fires springing up all around us. We thought it was over for us, but . . . the sky cleared, and we were the last ones standing.” He cleared his throat, a gesture that seemed almost nervous. “I believe we’ll be able to go past the gate into Duscae, if we return, but you were unconscious at the close of the battle, and so we decided to stop here for now.”

Noctis paused to drink in the details of the story. A _storm._ No wonder he had so little magic left at his disposal. And no wonder Ignis looked so wary. A feat like that had the mark of the gods on it. “So where’s ‘here’?” he finally asked. “And are the others okay?”

“They’re fine,” Ignis said. “We each had some injuries from the battle, but the storm didn’t touch us. As for where we are, we managed to make it to an outpost near the blockade. Prompto and Gladio are outside now.”

“What time is it?”

“Around noon,” Ignis said with a glance at his watch. “You’ve been asleep since yesterday afternoon.”

“Still tired,” Noctis murmured, closing his eyes. “Any threat of the empire finding us here? Do we have to leave?”

“It would be wise to leave as soon as we can,” Ignis said. “But I understand you’re exhausted. You need your rest, and to replenish your power. It would be dangerous for you to try to fight again in this state, after all.”

Noctis hummed something like agreement, approval. “Hey, Ignis . . . would you stay?” he asked, but when uncertainty—or was it discomfort, or both?—flashed across Ignis’s face, he amended, “Or, if you don’t want to, could you send someone else?”

Ignis paused with parted lips, no doubt debating his answer. At last he said, “I’ll stay, Highness.”

“It’s Noct.”

“Noct.”


	2. Why Does It Feel Like My Heart Will Break in Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NkkE7ESiaY) song.

They passed through the gate into Duscae the next morning. Noctis had stayed in bed a while longer, drifting in and out of sleep while Ignis sat in silence beside him. Later that afternoon, the four of them had tried to do some light training, hoping to start to bring Noctis back to his full fighting capacity. He lost most of the fights, and his back protested nearly every time he swung his weapon. Still, he tried not to complain. He did intend to fight, after all.

After dark, they’d sat around outside their caravan. Noctis sat curled up in a chair with a blanket over his shoulders, and Ignis insisted on making him tea. The other three had mostly behaved as normal, joking around and insulting each other and trying to coax Noctis into playing games on his phone. Noctis declined, as he guessed that looking at a screen would bring his headaches back full force, but he couldn’t help feeling relieved at the lack of tension between them.

As the hours inched closer to midnight, the four of them only got quieter. Finally, while they stood in near silence inside the caravan, Gladio finally said, “So, are we just not gonna talk about the fact that His Highness here just about brought the wrath of the gods down on us?” Per usual, he delivered Noctis’s title with an air of disdain, though the rest of the question sounded more teasing than anything else.

“I don’t know what I did,” Noctis said, deflecting.

“He’s not accusing you, Noct,” Prompto said. “You, uh . . . you kind of saved our asses, not gonna lie. But the method was just a little bit terrifying. Maybe more than a little bit.”

“Yeah, I mean, just the lightning probably would’ve been enough to do it,” Gladio said. “But then you had to go and add all the other stuff, too. You didn’t think one was enough?”

“I said I don’t know what I did.”

“I’m kidding, Noct.” Gladio grinned, crossing his arms over his chest.

Ignis, leaning against a counter opposite him, said, “If he doesn’t have any answers for us, then there’s nothing left for us to say about it.”

“Yeah, I hear you,” Gladio said. He moved toward one of the futons at the front of the caravan, the one nearest the door. “Think I’ll call it a night. See you all in the morning.”

Prompto and Ignis agreed. Noctis said he wasn’t really that tired, he’d probably stay up for a little longer. Prompto disappeared to the back of the caravan, while Ignis sat on the edge of the other futon. Noctis strode outside and pulled out one of the chairs at the table there, flicking on the radio to see if it would pick anything up.

At first he heard nothing but static, yet when he moved to turn the radio off again, the bump of his hand against the device caused the signal to stutter. A voice came in, just barely, a woman reporting the news.

“. . . fall of Insomnia. The deaths of King Regis Lucis Caelum and Crown Prince Noctis have been confirmed, as well as the passing of Lady Lunafreya Nox Fleuret of Tenebrae. The king and the prince died defending their city, which has now passed into imperial hands. On the other hand, Lady Lunafreya, the Oracle and a daughter of the royal family, supposedly met her end trying to perform rites to the gods. . . .”

Noctis felt as if his breath had turned to ice in his lungs. Luna, the childhood friend he hadn’t seen in years, suddenly pronounced dead while trying to _perform rites to the gods?_ He knew the duties of the Oracle—they’d been explained to him by both Luna and various adults in his life, and the media seemed to include it in their lineup of stories at least once a day. He knew Luna was supposed to call upon the Six. And he knew that the Six were volatile, unpredictable. But never in his life had he imagined that they would want to see her dead.

He didn’t hear the rest of the story. His hands were shaking, and he was beginning to feel the same as he had when he had discovered that his father had died—as if the world had dropped out from under him, as if he were falling endlessly, cut loose, numb. The gods were the ones who had set him on this path, and yet they dared to punish Luna, when he was convinced she’d done absolutely nothing wrong. They couldn’t possibly expect him to keep following the road they’d laid for him, not when he might meet the same fate by doing so. Besides—

Besides, it was _Luna_. He should _destroy_ them for this.

A while later—Noctis couldn’t keep track—the door to the caravan slid open, and Ignis looked out. Of course he would still be awake, and with enough nerve to check on him.

“Highness?”

“Don’t _call_ me that.” Noctis’s tone had more venom in it than he’d intended, but he couldn’t exactly bring himself to care. Not now.

“Is everything all right?” Ignis stepped out and crossed to where Noctis sat, eyeing the radio, which still hissed news about the empire and the Crown City. Noctis reached out and struck the device from the table.

The sharp crack of the radio hitting the ground made Ignis stammer out a startled “Highness,” disregarding again Noctis’s insistence on calling him by his name. Noctis shook his head and stood up, knocking his chair back. He turned away from Ignis and the caravan and started to walk.

“Wait,” Ignis said, striding after him and clamping a hand on his shoulder, which Noctis shook off. “ _Stop_.”

“Don’t _bother_ ,” Noctis snapped.

Ignis reached out and took hold of his arm in an uncharacteristic show of force, spinning Noctis around to face him and gripping his shoulders. “ _Noctis Lucis Caelum._ You are not leaving us, not like this. Don’t you dare take another step.”

Noctis tried to pull away again, but Ignis held tight, refusing to let him go. “Fuck off,” he said, but despite the words, he felt his eyes beginning to sting. Gods damn it, he was so weak. “Let me go. I don’t care.”

“Did something happen?” Ignis asked. “At least tell me what’s going on.”

Noctis jerked against Ignis’s grip, one last attempt to detach himself. “Luna’s dead,” he snapped. “She’s _dead._ Okay? Do you feel better now?”

“Noct,” Ignis said, his voice finally softening into that single syllable of his name. And as he gathered Noctis into his arms, Noctis felt his whole body relax into the embrace, surrendering to Ignis’s warmth. Oh, gods, gods, he was suddenly so tired he could tumble into sleep right here.

“I hate this,” he murmured against Ignis’s shoulder. His advisor just murmured low, soothing words, one of his hands running up and down Noctis’s back. He could feel the oppressive, threatening cold of the rest of the world and the calm, steadying warmth of Ignis’s body at the same time, his arms, a gloved hand tracing paths along his spine, another braced against his shoulder blade. Gods, he felt like he was losing his mind. He was too numb to cry and in too much pain to break away, to stand on his own.

“Shall we go inside?” Ignis asked, and when he spoke, Noctis could feel the low hum of his voice. He wanted to tell Ignis to just keep talking to him.

“Yeah,” he conceded instead.

Ignis disentangled himself from Noctis, leading the way back to the caravan and pushing the door open. He walked all the way to the makeshift bedroom, standing next to the doorway while Noctis sat down on the edge of the mattress and pulled off his boots. He felt Ignis’s eyes on him, studying, no doubt watching for warning signs, yet also likely wondering if he should stay or go. Noctis had felt cold without him.

“Stay here for a while?” he asked at last, looking up at Ignis.

Ignis sighed. “If you insist, Highness.”

“You can sleep if you want,” Noctis offered, gesturing to the other side of the bed.

“If you wanted companionship, you should’ve just asked Prompto,” Ignis said, but he left his shoes at the door and moved to lie beside Noctis, staying on top of the sheets while Noctis crawled beneath them. They lay with their backs to each other, but Noctis could still feel Ignis there, and that was what he needed. He focused on taking deep breaths and on the cadence of Ignis’s breathing behind him, and eventually this lulled him back to sleep.

He slept fitfully, his dreams like fevered hallucinations in which the gods called out to him, asking him to make a contract with them, speaking in their ancient, resounding voices. Most of the time he couldn’t even decipher what they wanted from him. He heard them reminding him of his role as the next King of Lucis, the one who would bring back the light. He kept shaking his head, refusing, weaving in and out of consciousness. He didn’t know what it meant.

He opened his eyes to sound and light and movement. The door to the room at the back of the caravan was cracked, and he could hear voices through it. Evidently, Prompto and Ignis had already woken and left the room. Noctis wondered how he could still be so exhausted.

He dragged himself out of bed, running his hands through his hair, and slipped out of the room. The other three greeted him when he emerged from the caravan, and the looks on their faces had tipped Noctis off to the fact that they knew. All of them. Not just Ignis. So either he’d told them, or they’d spent some time listening to the news. Well.

Now the gate into Duscae loomed ahead of them, and they looked to the road ahead in silence. Lestallum was still pretty far off, and Ignis had told them to settle in for a long drive. Already, Prompto had tried to turn on the radio only to have Ignis shut it off right away, and Gladio had pointed out what looked like a fleet of imperial ships, resulting in Ignis pulling the car over and the four of them scrambling out into the surrounding woods to take temporary shelter. The ships hadn’t landed, nor even changed direction, and eventually they’d returned to the car and continued on.

Ignis had just told them that he estimated they were about halfway there when the first headache sank its claws into Noctis’s skull.

He cried out, leaning forward and nearly hitting his head on the back of the driver’s seat. Shocks of pain hit his head and flickered down his spine, and his vision went white for a second. When the flash of light faded, more images followed—things he didn’t understand, places he hadn’t seen, unrecognizable figures and faces. By the time he came up for air, he was dizzy and disoriented enough to forget where he was, and the others were looking at him, save for Ignis, who had devoted his concentration to driving and cast only a glance at him in the rearview mirror.

“Noct,” Prompto said, and was that surprise in his voice? “You okay there?”

Noctis grunted in reply. He felt like he’d been electrocuted or something, but suddenly, he didn’t want to say so. Didn’t want to show weakness, not like he had last night outside the caravan. Didn’t want them to doubt him, to say they knew better, to remind him that he was the next king, to think that he was still a child who didn’t fit into the crown he had to wear. Didn’t want to fight anymore.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Highness, you didn’t sound fine just now,” Ignis said. While Noctis was certain he was trying to make eye contact in the mirror again, he kept his eyes stubbornly on the passing scenery.

They drove in silence for another few miles. Noctis tried to remember the images that had flashed across his vision, but all of them seemed so far away now, like distant dreams. More like nightmares, actually. He tried to keep gazing out at the landscape, to keep up the façade of indifference, but even the motion of the car and the constant blurring of the world outside it made him a little dizzy, and he ended up resting his head in his hands. He could feel the others looking at him.

Just before they reached Lestallum, rain began to fall, in an intermittent drizzle at first and then—after they’d raised the cover on the car and rolled the windows back up—in a steady downpour. As Ignis pulled into a parking spot, Noctis and Prompto shared a despairing look at the prospect of having to walk outside in the rain and almost certainly ruin their hair. Gladio caught this and reached over to muss Noctis’s hair, earning a jab from Noctis’s elbow.

“Wait,” Prompto said before Ignis could open the driver’s door and step out. “Where to now?”

“We might check in at a hotel,” Ignis suggested. “We can reconsider our options once we regroup there. I believe some of the people who survived the destruction of the Crown City were said to be sent here, so we should be safe. Of course, if any of you would like to try to seek out another soul . . .”

“My sister,” Gladio said. “I tried calling her that day we left, but I didn’t hear anything. I should take a walk through town. See if I can find anyone who’s seen her.”

“Certainly.” Ignis pulled back the handle on the door, popping it open. “We should go, then, and let’s make haste.”

“Try not to get rain on the seats,” Noctis muttered.

They stepped outside to find that the rain was exactly as bad as it had seemed while they were on the road. Noctis’s hair was damp within the first minute, and the shoulders of his jacket, and he already wanted to get inside and take a proper bath.

The four of them turned a corner to take the ramp up to the main part of Lestallum, and they were greeted—stopped, accosted, really—by a figure completely unknown and unfamiliar to Noctis.

“Well, _well_.” A man with unruly hair the color of wine, or maybe blood, and a hat shielding his face from the rain, greeted them, his arms spread as if welcoming a few old friends he hadn’t seen in a while. He also wore a long coat, black with ornate flourishes of fabric, and a red scarf. Not someone Noctis thought he would want to associate with. “Look who we have here. The new King of Lucis himself.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Noctis said. His wet bangs had fallen into his eyes.

“Oh, but you do, my dear boy,” the man said. “I’m hurt that you would try to deny it.”

Ignis and Gladio had sidled in front of Noctis, protecting him from potential assault, while Prompto hovered at his side as moral support. Noctis could feel them reaching out for their weapons. He could feel a current of magic in the atmosphere around them, wavering like the electricity before a storm. But the stranger clearly sensed this as well. He shook his head with an amused laugh, one hand tipping the brim of his hat downward.

“You don’t have to be so guarded,” he said. “I have no intention of attacking you. I’ve heard much about the strength of the Crown Prince’s—well, the _former_ Crown Prince’s well-trained entourage. Quite satisfactory.” He tilted his head to one side, studying them through the rain. “As I’m sure you’re aware, some very strange disturbances have been affecting this area ever since those rumors of the Oracle passing through.”

Noctis reminded himself not to show any emotion, but something about his surprise and rage must have shown on his face, because the stranger met his eyes and laughed. “Oh, you hadn’t heard? How unfortunate. I’d assumed that’s why you were here.”

“What do you want?” Gladio asked, practically through his teeth.

“Who said I wanted anything?” the stranger said, shaking his head. “I just saw your car pull in and thought I might as well pay the rightful king a visit. And give you a tip—you might wish to speak to the source of the tremors around here. As far as I’m aware, every king owes the gods a visit, does he not?”

“They were the cause of Luna’s death.” Noctis spoke without thinking, spitting each of his words toward the pavement. “Why should I have anything to do with them at all? How do I know you’re not just sending me to them so that they can kill me, too?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” the stranger said. He looked somehow appalled at the suggestion, despite the fact that the smirk remained on his face. “You are a highly important individual, Your Majesty. I doubt even the gods would have reason to harm you.”

“They had some reason to harm Luna,” Noctis said under his breath. He wanted to tell the stranger that he _knew_ he was bullshitting them, saying things that weren’t true, intentionally trying to misguide them. But he could also sense a sort of dormant malevolence from the stranger, some hidden source of power that might even go deeper than what he let show.

“And you’re so certain that the Oracle’s death was due to an act of the gods?” the stranger asked, that insufferable smile broadening as he spoke. He didn’t grace the group with any follow-up questions, just stood there looking at them and waiting for their response.

“Do you know something we don’t?” Gladio returned, and coming from him, it sounded like a threat.

“Perhaps.” The stranger took a step back, angling his body sideways, as if he were preparing to take his leave of them. “But I shouldn’t intervene, should I? You all have your own agenda.”

Before any of them could say anything, he’d turned and walked away, waving a hand absently over his shoulder. The four of them were left standing in a sort of formation, frozen like statues who’d been turned to stone just before battle. Noctis felt as if he were going to burst into flame. He found himself consumed by such anger that he could hardly see straight.

“Noct, are you all right?” Ignis asked.

“That bastard,” Noctis said. “Who the hell does he think he is, talking about Luna and the gods like that? Telling us what to do?”

Prompto clapped him on the shoulder a couple of times. “Calm down, dude. It’s not like he tried to attack us or something.”

“Though he is probably someone we should be wary of,” Ignis said, looking over his shoulder at the stranger’s retreating black coat. “He seemed rather . . .”

“Shady,” Gladio said, at the same time that Prompto chimed in with, “Sketchy?”

“All of the above,” Noctis said.

“We’ll keep an eye out, just in case he shows up again. ’Til then, we should go find a hotel to crash in,” Prompto offered, casting a hopeful glance in Noctis’s direction.

“Uh, yeah. My hair feels gross.” Noctis brushed a hand against his wet hair, which he knew only made it look like more of a mess than it already was. “And my clothes are all wet. Do we have extras?”

“A few, in the car,” Ignis said. “I didn’t anticipate we’d be standing out in the rain this long. I’ll go and find them. You three can go on ahead if you’d like.”

“Nuh-uh.” Prompto shook his head. “After that? Kinda don’t think we should leave you alone to get mugged by some rando.”

Ignis smiled a sort of bemused half-smile, one that Noctis knew meant he thought Prompto’s statement was a tad ridiculous, but he appreciated it anyway. “All right. If you insist,” he said as he led the way back to the car.

They walked through the rain to the Regalia, and they walked through the rain to get to the hotel. By the time they stopped on the threshold of the hotel, their clothes were dripping with rainwater, and a few of the hotel staff had started handing out towels to anyone who had come in from outside. Noctis took one from them gratefully, using it to dry his hair and pat down his jacket. The others did the same. As soon as they were dry enough to walk through the hotel without trailing paths of rainwater after them, Ignis checked them into a room, likely also bribing the staff into silence about Noctis’s presence, judging by the looks that the people at the front desk were shooting Noctis and the others and by the way Ignis sort of leaned across the counter. Either he was paying them or threatening them.

Whatever the case was, the Leville was a much nicer place to crash than the caravan they’d found the night before, and both Noctis and Prompto found themselves prematurely missing it before they’d even left. While Ignis disappeared into the bathroom—Noctis having used it first, of course, and Prompto after him, while Gladio sprawled in a chair and read some book that appeared not to have a title—they sat on one of the beds, their phones lying out between them, and looked around at the room, halfheartedly complaining about how they probably wouldn’t see a place like this in a while.

“You guys are lucky we even have the gil to stay in a place like this,” Gladio mused from behind the cover of his book.

“Nobody asked you,” Noctis said, shifting to lie on his back and stare at the ceiling.

“Seriously, that shower in the caravan was _barely_ a shower.” Prompto shook his head. “I don’t get how you think staying at a campsite is a good idea, either. There isn’t even any running water. All you have is the river. If there’s a river, anyway.”

“The river has perfectly good running water.” Gladio still didn’t bother looking up.

“If it’s anything like the rain water, I don’t want anything to do with it,” Noctis said.

“Noct, you wanna play King’s Knight?” Prompto asked.

“Sure, why not.”

When Ignis stepped back into the room a few minutes later, he just sighed at the sight of the four of them. Gladio set down his book and went into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him, and the sound of the water running started up again not that long later.

“You’re feeling better, I take it, Highness?” Ignis asked.

“Sure,” Noctis said without taking his eyes off his phone.

“You know, I’d appreciate it if you’d take my questions seriously,” Ignis said, turning to face Noctis and Prompto and crossing his arms over his chest. “Especially with the way you were last night.”

“I’m fine, Specs.”

Even Prompto was giving him a sort of concerned look. Okay, so _maybe_ he’d needed Ignis’s reassurance last night, but there was no way he wanted to talk about that. Especially not with the others around. He didn’t want to shed any more light on his moments of weakness, and besides, he was still pissed off at the guy who’d approached them earlier in the street. He could feel his magic practically boiling in his veins, tension still building and ready to explode at any given moment.

The four of them didn’t talk much, despite their more comfortable arrangements. They fought over who was getting the second bed and the sofa and the floor—well, Prompto and Gladio did, mostly, because Noctis knew one of the beds was his, and Ignis was too polite to get in the middle of such a discussion. He finally volunteered to take the floor. Gladio managed to convince them that he needed to be closest to the door, to guard it, and so he claimed the second bed. Noctis and Prompto stayed on the first for a while, playing video games and continuing their string of complaints, more for the hell of it than anything. Ignis wouldn’t sit still, and kept pacing the room rearranging supplies or looking out the window. Noctis finally told him to go to bed and stop unsettling everybody.

Ignis glared at him, but he took his spot on the floor anyway, and eventually Noctis and Prompto were the only ones still awake. The lights were all on, but someone had thrown the bolt on the door and the room was quiet. Prompto kept glancing at Noctis while they tried to concentrate on King’s Knight.

“Noct,” he finally whispered. “You sure you’re fine? I mean, Ignis told us this morning how you found out about Lady Lunafreya, and—”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” Noctis refused to lift his eyes from his phone, though he felt as if he were looking past the images on the screen. Every time he thought back to last night and this afternoon, he felt his anger rising to the surface on a tide of raw magic, threatening to be let loose in a torrent that would be felt for miles. Like the storm that had destroyed the empire’s magitek troopers and left him unconscious for hours. He wanted _someone_ to bleed for this. Whether it was that stranger who’d approached them upon their arrival in Lestallum, or the emperor of Niflheim, or the gods themselves. Maybe all of them.

“Noct,” Prompto whispered again.

Noctis knew that if he looked up, he would see that familiar look of concern on his friend’s face. He didn’t want to deal with the fallout of that concern, not right now. He’d allowed himself to be weak the night before when Ignis had found him, but now the rage burned so brightly in his chest that it was hard to breathe. He didn’t want to be weak anymore.

“What do you think would happen if we went to find the Six, like Luna did?” Noctis asked, his voice just above a whisper. “What if we fought back?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Prompto said. “If you’re going to go after somebody, why not the empire?” When Noctis remained silent, he continued, “Look, the gods couldn’t possibly have an interest in taking out Lady Lunafreya. She’s their Oracle. She’s, like, taking care of Eos for them, right?”

_You’re so certain that the Oracle’s death was due to an act of the gods?_ the stranger’s voice said in his head.

Noctis sighed. “I guess.”

“We could probably try to find out what happened to her.” Prompto let his phone drop onto the sheets in front of them. The screen had gone dark. “As long as we stay hidden, you know? We could maybe retrace her steps, find out where she went last.”

The word _last_ sent a spike of resentment through Noctis, but he swallowed and nodded. “Yeah, I’d . . . like to do that.”

“We can talk to Ignis and Gladio about it tomorrow,” Prompto said. “Do you wanna play another match? Or would you rather turn in?”

“Let’s go another round.” After all the sleeping he’d done in the wake of their flight from the Crown City, he wasn’t that eager to return to it—and besides, the voices of the gods still haunted him from the dreams he’d had the night before. He let himself focus on the game and nothing else for a while.

After the two of them decided to call it a night and turned the lights out, Noctis lay in bed staring at the ceiling. He couldn’t see much of anything in the darkness, but he let his mind wander. Luna—they’d been in contact before everything had happened. She’d written him in that notebook they shared, saying that everything was all right with her, that she hoped they would see one another soon.

Noctis rolled onto his side, thinking about how Ignis had acted as a shield for him the night before, creating that barrier of warmth at his back. He sort of missed it already. He’d let the others leave him alone tonight, for the most part, but now that he was taking up an entire hotel bed, he felt the surrounding emptiness like the pull of gravity. He wanted someone else to fill that space.

His thoughts followed him into sleep, where once again the gods’ voices whispered to him from afar. He heard not his name but his title, _King of Lucis_ , and one low, nearly unintelligible voice above the others, telling him that he had to agree to his contract with them, as Luna had. Telling him that doing so was his destiny, and required if he was to bring back the light.

He found his voice in this dream. _What do you mean?_ he asked, though his very question sounded like it came from a distant, echoing corner of the realm he’d fallen into. _The light hasn’t left Eos._

The gods told him he was the key, and that eventually, the light would slip away from them. The events had been set in motion, they said. The pieces were in play. They knew all that would happen. His sacrifice—

_Sacrifice?_ Noctis demanded. _What sacrifice?_

He woke up.

His hands had clenched fistfuls of the sheets, and he could feel the sheen of sweat beading on his skin, his throat dry as if he’d been running too long without water. The room was dark, with no hint of light peeking in from behind the curtains or signs of movement from the rest of the room. The sun hadn’t even come up yet.

Noctis groaned softly and twisted himself out of the sheets, shifting to the other side of the bed. He felt like he’d been asleep for ten minutes, yet the clock on the table between the beds showed that several hours had passed. The late night had become early morning.

From the floor, he heard the whisper of fabric. “Highness?” Ignis’s voice asked.

“Mmm,” Noctis said in reply, too groggy to formulate actual words.

In the next moment, he felt the mattress shift and found Ignis sitting directly next to him, on the edge of the bed. Just like before. “You’ve been tossing and turning all night,” he whispered. “And calling out in your sleep.”

Noctis drew in a deep breath. “Just dreams,” he said. “You were awake?”

“Every small sound wakes me.” He stood up again. “I suppose I’m too vigilant for my own good.”

Noctis couldn’t help but huff a small laugh. “Probably.”

Ignis hesitated a moment before speaking again. “Do you want to talk about them? Or perhaps about last night? If there’s anything I can—”

“It’s fine, Specs. Go back to bed,” Noctis said. He didn’t want Ignis to hear that the gods had been speaking to him while he slept, didn’t want his advisor to overanalyze the meaning of the words or think that something was wrong with him. He wished that he hadn’t woken Ignis by talking in his sleep in the first place. Hopefully he hadn’t said anything too clearly. He could still hear them saying _sacrifice_ in their chorus of voices.

“All right.” Without another word, Ignis left him alone. Noctis drew the sheets around him again, closing his eyes in an attempt to return to sleep, but moments later he recalled Prompto’s suggestion and couldn’t seem to get it out of his head.

He moved to the edge of the bed and looked over to the floor, where Ignis had laid out one of the extra pillows and a thin blanket, and where he now lay with his arms crossed over his chest. “Hey—do you think we could try to follow Luna?” he asked.

Ignis blinked, shifting so that he could prop himself up on one elbow and meet Noctis’s eyes. “I don’t know if that would be advisable,” he said. “Judging by what that stranger said, it’s possible that the empire will attempt to follow her as well. We could be putting ourselves in the path of unnecessary danger.”

“Then what are we going to do?” Noctis asked. “We can’t stay here, can we?”

“Certainly not.” Ignis’s eyes flicked away from his. “I’ll give it some thought. We can talk more after sunrise.”

“Okay. Sure.”

Hours later, he, Prompto, and Ignis sat around their hotel room. Gladio had left to see if he could find his sister, while the three of them stayed behind to talk about their plans. Noctis suspected that Prompto and Ignis wanted to keep him in their sights, as well, but they didn’t say anything, and Noctis wasn’t about to bring it up. After Ignis had procured them some food from downstairs, they sat around the room’s short coffee table in silence for a while. Ignis, of course, spoke first.

“Noct, you mentioned to me this morning that we might consider going after Lady Lunafreya,” Ignis began, his tone deliberate enough that Noctis kind of wanted to shake him. “I know that we need to stay out of sight long enough for the empire to lose track of you, but it’s true that we can’t sit by and do nothing. I think it may be worth the effort, if we can glean both information and means from it.”

“Yeah, I think so, too,” Prompto said. “Where do we start?”

Noctis let out a breath. “Well, she was supposed to be communing with the gods, or whatever. Talking to them. Waking them up, I guess. So she would’ve had to follow some sort of logical trail.”

“The man we met yesterday suggested we look for the source of the tremors around the area,” Ignis said. “Which could be the Disc of Cauthess, judging by the geography. And if you’ll remember, the lore says the Disc is the resting place of Titan, the Archaean, which might explain why Lady Lunafreya passed through here.”

“Oh,” Prompto said, his eyes wide.

“Yeah, but we also don’t know if what that guy said is true.” Noctis ran his hands through his hair. “He could’ve been lying about Luna.”

“He would’ve needed information about both us and her if he were to lie,” Ignis said. “So whether he told the exact truth about her or not, he knew that the information would get a reaction out of you, Highness. He does indeed know something about the situation.”

“I guess.”

“If you’ll remember, he also knew on sight that you were the king,” Ignis said, lowering his voice a little. “Dangerous information for someone like him to have. It means that not only does he likely know more than we think he does, but we must be even more cautious in our proceedings than we had formerly anticipated we would have to be. If we take our next move from him and he is aware of it, and then reports our movements to the empire or someone involved with them, it won’t end well for us.”

“That’s assuming he knows people with the empire.” Noctis crossed his arms over his chest. “We don’t know anything about him. He could be anyone.”

“We have to prepare for the worst,” Ignis said. His voice had gone quiet. “And I think that our worst case scenario at the moment is running into someone from the empire, second to that being running into someone from the empire without knowing it and revealing our plans to them.”

“We could fight them if it came to that.”

“If they knew of our plans, Highness, it could very well be suicide.”

Prompto held up his hands. “Okay, wait. Stop. We don’t know if this guy is from the empire or not—but are we taking him seriously?” he asked. “Like, about talking to the gods, and the gods causing the tremors around here? And about Lady Lunafreya’s . . . about what happened to her?”

“I would argue that yes, what he’s told us makes sense,” Ignis said. “It lines up with what I know of the Six and cosmogony. Lady Lunafreya’s situation remains to be seen.”

“I think he’s full of shit,” Noctis announced, resting his feet on the table.

Ignis glared at him. “Do you not remember what our books said about the Astrals?”

“You think I was paying attention?” Noctis asked. “Fine. We can go to the Disc, if you think it’ll work. And if it does, I’m going to beat the hell out of whoever we meet there. Including any gods who are supposedly asleep.”

“Your job is not to destroy the gods,” Ignis pointed out. “It’s to form contracts with them. To borrow their power.”

“They killed _Luna._ ”

“We don’t know that.”

“You’re actually considering _that_ guy’s opinion?”

Prompto sat forward. “You guys, cut it out. It doesn’t matter. We might never even see him again.”

Noctis buried his head in his hands. He knew the stranger could be right, but he couldn’t ignore the feeling of foreboding he got when he thought about that conversation. He could’ve been misdirecting them. Could’ve been trying to drive them down another path. Noctis wanted to pretend they’d never seen the guy and move on.

He felt a hand at his shoulder blade and looked over to see that Prompto had reached out to him. The contact steadied him a little, and he took a deep breath, letting it go in a long sigh.

But before he could speak again, a stab of pain hit him in the back of his skull, and he doubled over with a cry, his hands clutching his head. When the sensation subsided and he finally opened his eyes, he had no idea if a second or a year had passed. He felt dizzy, felt sweat beading at his temples and down his spine. His lungs strained for air. He remembered the feeling, during that battle when he’d accidentally summoned a storm of impossible combinations of elements, and later when he’d been assaulted by visions in the car. Was this—and were the nightmares—the gods’ way of speaking to him? Or was it some sick consequence of what was supposed to be the power of the Lucian line?

“Noct,” Prompto said, voice a little bit hoarse, and Noctis wondered how many times he’d said it. “You good? What happened?”

“Headache,” Noctis muttered. “Give me a minute.”

“Okay.”

The three of them sat in silence for a while, Noctis fighting to breathe and keeping a hand pressed against his forehead. After several minutes of this, he stood up. “I’m going to shower,” he said. “Let me know when Gladio gets back.”

“Highness, we’ll have to check out of this room soon, you know,” Ignis called after him, but Noctis ignored him and disappeared into the bathroom. He locked the door behind him and leaned his forehead against it.

“Stop calling me ‘Highness,’” he whispered. His position was about the last thing he wanted to be reminded of now.

He made it out before the staff showed up to reprimand them, though it took Ignis’s knocking on the door and demanding that he finish up soon. His hair was still a little damp when they left the Leville and stepped back out into the brutal heat of Lestallum.

“So what’s new?” Noctis asked the others.

Gladio looked over his shoulder at him. “I found Iris,” he said with a hint of a smile. “Talked to her not that long ago. She says she’s fine here, but she’ll eventually want to leave for a change of scenery or whatever, and might have to ask us to do her a favor and drive her somewhere. Also told me that in the meantime, a lot of people are in hiding here since it’s supposed to be a pretty safe spot. Hasn’t seen any imperial troops.”

“Yeah?” Noctis said. “So what’s the deal?” His eyes flicked to Ignis, who wasn’t looking at him. “Where are we headed?”

“We thought we’d ask you,” Prompto said. “What do you think? The Disc?”

Noctis sighed. “Yeah, sure.”

“Highness, I feel I need to remind you to be cautious with your own life,” Ignis said, leveling an all too serious look at Noctis. “I understand that what’s happened has been upsetting, but you need to focus on keeping yourself alive, no matter what comes next.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Noctis waved a dismissive hand and started to turn away from them, but Gladio caught his shoulder, none too gently.

“He’s right, Noct,” he said. “You’re the King of Lucis. Act like it.”

Noctis twisted out of his grip.

The others ended up following him to the car, and he kept his back to them, his pace unrelenting. Gods, he hated this. He wished he’d met his end when Insomnia had fallen. He clenched his hands into fists, his nails digging into his palms, and tried to breathe. Someone would pay for this.

He opened the driver’s door, and as soon as he did, Prompto called out, “Noct, wait.” Ignis appeared at his side to take his place, but Noctis pointed to the backseat.

“Get in,” he said, looking around at all of them, daring them to contradict him.

“Highness, no, you’re not driving,” Ignis said. “You’re too volatile. You could have another headache.”

“Who _cares?”_ Noctis snapped. “Let’s just get out of here.”

“I won’t have you endangering the rest of us as well as yourself,” Ignis said, his voice low, a warning. “Leave the driving to me, Highness.” He paused, and Noctis saw a flicker of concern on his face, saw his throat bob before he added, “Please.”

“Fine.” He turned to take the backseat, like always, and he thought he heard a dual sigh of relief from Prompto and Gladio’s side of the car. Moments later, they pulled out of the parking lot.

Noctis turned to glare at the Disc of Cauthess. If the gods were there, and they were guilty, he had no mercy for them.


End file.
